Realization
by Ranger Hitomi
Summary: Ryoga can point to the very moment in his life he realized he was in love with Yuma Tsukumo.


With a soft clink, Rio set a small pot of ramen on the table and ladled some into a bowl for her brother. He murmured his thanks and picked up his chopsticks, shadowed eyes gazing unfocusedly at his dinner. Idly prodding the noodles around her bowl, she watched him curiously as he ate. He had spent the last week in the hospital with Yuma after the incident with Misael, and he had been cross about something last night. His annoyance had curiously been replaced by despondency sometime between the time Rio had left the hospital and when she went to walk him home that morning after the hospital released him with the admonition that he stop doing dangerous things lest his next business be with a crematorium.

She waited patiently for him to speak first. He always did when something upset him. But he didn't. He finished his bowl of ramen and stood, excused himself, and slouched out of the dining room without another glance at his sister. She raised her eyebrows in surprise. Sighing, she set her chopsticks over her full bowl and followed him into the living room, where he collapsed in a cushy armchair near the empty fireplace and picked up the book he had been reading for the past week. Rio sat in the armchair next to him and resumed her study.

When Ryoga read books he enjoyed, his face went through a series of emotions, from astonishment to resentment to gloom to serenity. He became part of the world he read about. It was a way for him to escape from his own memories, his own world, he had explained once. Becoming engrossed with someone else's made-up problems seemed an odd way to cope with real life, but Rio didn't question it. But he wasn't reading now, she could tell. His troubled eyes barely moved across the page. It was clear to her that he was only holding the book to have something to do with his hands, and it provided an easy excuse for him to avoid talking.

They sat in silence for nearly ten minutes. His eyes flicked sideways a few times but when he noticed Rio's gaze upon him, he looked down quickly at the same spot on the page. She watched him patiently and leaned back comfortably in her chair to show him that she wasn't going anywhere for a while. Finally, he snapped the book shut and glared at her.

"What?"

She frowned at his rough tone. "There's no need to be rude, Ryoga."

"Why not? Everyone at school thinks I am. Maybe I should just accept it." There was definite resentment in his voice now.

"Is that what's bothering you?" She leaned toward him concernedly and reached across the small table in between their chairs until she had a firm grasp on his wrist.

"No." He looked like he regretted even speaking to her in the first place, his mouth drawn in a thin line and his eyebrows knitted closely together. He picked up his book again and shifted as though preparing to leave. He tried to tug his hand away but she gripped him tighter.

"Ryoga, you're my brother and I love you. But you can be the most infuriating person in the world sometimes."

His shoulders tightened as he slumped back in his chair. Satisfied, she relinquished her grip on his wrist. She slid out of her chair and knelt on the floor next to him, leaning her head on the arm of the chair. She could read the title of the book resting on his lap now, and was unsurprised to see a science fiction novel. He had a bizarre fascination with the supernatural and arcane, which probably explained how he had so readily accepted his role in the literal war of the worlds he had landed himself in. He gazed unseeingly at the hearth, looking so much more forlorn up close. She had never seen him look this tired; with everything happening around them, she wasn't surprised he probably couldn't sleep at night. He exhaled heavily.

"When does friendship stop being friendship?"

She was taken aback. She had expected him to talk about how the people at school wouldn't look at him, how they whispered when he passed, like he was something beneath them. It almost always had to do with a rampage of some sort he had gone on before and during the World Duel Carnival, which was something he never talked about. She didn't even understand what his question meant. "Like, when two people have differences and drift away from one another?"

He shook his head slowly. "No, I mean… when two people have a friendship that… is greater than friendship."

Her eyebrows shot up again. Surely not, not _Ryoga_. "You mean… love?"

Ryoga's eyes no longer looked troubled. He looked frightened, almost, and he clenched his book until his knuckles turned white. "Rio, what _is_ love? People talk about it like it's the most common thing to feel, but it's not, is it? It's more complicated than that."

She tilted her head thoughtfully and pursed her lips. "I would say so. There are different types of love, I think. Like there's the kind of love a friend has for another, or the powerful romantic attraction, like love at first sight. But love at first sight isn't real love, in my opinion."

"Why?"

"Well, you can find someone physically attractive, but they could be a horrible person or not the right person for you. It's a primal instinct, see? You want to find the most physically appealing person to mate with to make strong babies."

Ryoga grimaced. "You've really given this a lot of thought, haven't you?"

She chuckled. "Well, I just get tired of seeing it in the movies and stuff, you know? It's _so _cliché. But real love is way different. It can be a physical attraction, but it goes deeper than that. I think that two people can only really fall in love when they show that they can give up the greatest part of themselves for the other. When they can look past the other's greatest weaknesses and faults and love them anyway because they tried hard to change for the better. When they sacrifice everything for the other. _That's _real love."

Her brother's brow furrowed as he thought about it. He looked troubled again. "When do you realize that what you feel for a friend is different from just a normal friendship?"

"It depends. When did _you_ start thinking that you might have fallen in love with Yuma?"

Ryoga looked up, startled. His mouth dropped open slightly but he seemed at a loss for words. Rio smiled at him and touched his hand that was gripping the book in his lap so hard she wondered if he might be about to rip it in half.

"I didn't say that," he managed to say, though with unconvincing indignation.

Rio rolled her eyes. Did he think she was totally inattentive to the fact that he talked constantly about Yuma to her since she left the hospital (usually a complaint that Yuma couldn't learn to leave him alone, or did stupid things that almost always wound up with Ryoga in the hospital)? "I can see it, Ryoga. Especially after last week. The way you were about to take Yuma's place in that duel with Misael before Kaito cut in. Most people would have been terrified after seeing what Misael had done to him, but all you could see was that you needed to protect Yuma."

Ryoga let out a low breath and squeezed his eyes shut. The heavy shadows under his eyes were more pronounced that way. It struck her how much older he looked since his fall from grace in the dueling world. "It was during the WDC."

She listened carefully as he recounted his experience in the tournament. Her stomach clenched when he told her why he entered the tournament. The revenge against IV wasn't satisfying enough. He wanted to _destroy_ the man responsible for the fire. He wanted to make IV suffer the way he had made Rio suffer. She gripped his hand, and he returned the pressure as he told her how he had tried to go after Tron, but Tron got to him first, got so far into his heart, into his very soul, that he was consumed by a different kind of fire. And then he faced Yuma in the semifinals.

Ryoga had spent the entirety of the duel grappling for control of his own memories against Tron, struggling to overcome the voice in his head telling him to put an end to Yuma, who was responsible for Rio's hospitalization though he knew that couldn't be true, fighting Shark Drake's control over him. Throughout it all, Yuma's voice penetrated the confusion. Yuma had taken the Numbers from him, struggling against the monster's potent aura, risking being consumed by the power to spare Ryoga the pain of being possessed again. To give Ryoga a moment of clarity against the power consuming him.

"Oh Ryoga," she murmured as he paused and closed his eyes again.

"I could think clearly at that point, and I wish I could forget it. I felt like I was being stabbed in the heart, with the realization that Yuma…" His voice trembled. "He was prepared to lose, to sacrifice Astral, to save… me." He swallowed hard and she was stunned to see something she hadn't seen in years.

Her brother was crying.

"I couldn't let him do it," Ryoga whispered as Rio brushed her hand across his cheek, wiping off a stream of briny tears. "I used that moment of clarity to lose on purpose. I had to… I couldn't let Yuma lose Astral. I knew what Astral meant to him, even if I couldn't see him at the time. I just… couldn't."

Rio blinked the wetness from her own eyes. "You could have destroyed yourself."

Ryoga paused, mouth forming silent words as though he were trying to work out what to say next. He wiped a stream of clear snot from his nose with the back of his hand and wiped it off absently on the arm rest before replying. "As I was in the darkness, as I felt the confusing things Tron put in my heart, as Shark Drake tried to take over my body, I could always hear one thing." He gave his sister a sad smile, one that didn't touch his eyes. "I could always hear Yuma's voice. Telling me not to give up. That's when I realized that I lo-" He stopped abruptly as his body shuddered. His tear-filled eyes widened in surprise. "I love him, don't I?"

Rio reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close and stroking his back gently as he sobbed into her shoulder. It was the reverse of what he used to do when they were younger; she would have nightmares and he would hold her and stroke her hair until she fell asleep again. It was a comforting gesture, one she hoped Ryoga appreciated as much as she had.

"I think you do," she said softly.

"We dueled last night," he whispered shakily. "It was the only way to get through to him. He told me once that after two people duel they are bonded for life. So I poured out my feelings for him in that duel." His shoulders collapsed and he let her continue her gentle strokes of his hair, his back. It was relief, she realized. Relief that he had finally admitted to himself what she knew he was afraid to admit. "I hope he understood."

As Rio held her brother, she recalled the gentle smile, the affection in Yuma's eyes as he said good-bye to Ryoga at the hospital that morning. It left little doubt in her mind that Ryoga's feelings _had_ been received, if even a little. Yes, Ryoga had fallen in love, and every day he fell more for the peculiar boy with the ancient key from another world. She wanted so much for her brother to continue walking this path with Yuma, toward their uncertain future. It was easier to find purpose in life with someone you loved at your side.


End file.
